


Strange Giant Creatures

by omphalos



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: M/M, ex-lovers, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-06
Updated: 2009-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-04 05:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphalos/pseuds/omphalos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is set five years after the end of XMM2. It doesn't include XMM3 continuity as it was written before that was made. It introduces a well known element of comicsverse canon into the geography of the movieverse.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Strange Giant Creatures

**Author's Note:**

> This is set five years after the end of XMM2. It doesn't include XMM3 continuity as it was written before that was made. It introduces a well known element of comicsverse canon into the geography of the movieverse.

The statue's an accurate representation of Erik, Charles decides.

It's at least two thousand feet tall and considerably more muscled than Erik has ever been in his life. Its jaw is more defined than his, its face less wrinkled, but it's nonetheless an accurate image because it so effectively describes the size of the man's ego.

Charles twists his neck, having to look almost straight up, so huge is this monument that Erik has erected to his own glory. Like the statue, Erik's glory is both dubious and overstated, won here in this, his new 'Mutant Free State', an obscenity he has built on the forced relocation of thousands of native, non-mutant Genoshans.

Erik, of course, would not use the word 'obscenity'. He'd call Genosha 'haven', or 'homeland', or maybe even 'destiny'. Perhaps even 'empire' would do since there can't be any question of who rules here, not with such a proclamation of ownership overlooking the new capital city from this grassy hillside.

Is Erik aware of the irony? Whereas New York is watched over by Liberty herself, Genosha has a self-styled 'Master'. Oh yes, he has to be aware; he always had a bit of a 'thing' about _la Liberté éclairant le monde_.

It's a beautiful island, Genosha, if alarmingly hot. Situated off the east coast of Africa, somewhat further north than Madagascar, the climate is decidedly equatorial. Charles is almost glad his all-terrain wheelchair had the job of climbing this hill and not his own muscles. Even safely in the shadow of Erik's giant metal twin now, Charles still feels in danger of overheating in air made thick and heavy by the afternoon sun. Not even the slightest of breezes wafts in from the sea. He could have asked Ororo to change that, of course, but he didn't want attention drawn to his presence here until he was ready for it.

He is now.

Of course, the statue's not just a narcissistic statement. It's filled with electronics, sensors, transmitters, and antennae. And that's why Charles is waiting here, so that, unarguably, Erik will know that he has come. Erik would probably know wherever Charles waited on the island, but here in the shadow of Erik's folly is... symbolically correct.

The statue has a smell to it, one Charles strongly associates with Erik, sharp and ferrous. It's the smell of the scrapyard.

Erik's need for control, never made more overt than it is here, is not exactly a surprise, it being a fairly inevitable reaction to the lack of control he'd over even the most basic, primal things in Auschwitz. Not that every camp survivor is now a power mad control freak, very far from it in fact, but given Erik's core personality and powers, it seems obvious that he would be.

How much are the powers of mutants a reflection of their personalities? Do their abilities shape their natures, or is it their natures that in some way choose or form their powers? Charles never has had an answer to that one.

A brace of colourful birds flies overhead in a loose 'V', calling to one another. Maybe their bright feathers contain his answer. Yes, maybe.

It's hard for him not to smile when he looks up at this ridiculous statue, abomination though many people consider it. It's proof that Erik yet lives, thrives in fact, and despite everything, Charles is glad of that. While Erik lives, Charles won't give up hope for him, however baited.

'Baited' of course is a rather mild word for the things Erik has done and will no doubt continue to do while they both yet live. Sometimes Charles worries that Erik perpetuates his megalomania by using Charles as fuel. If Charles were not a witness, would Erik still care enough to show how fervently he doesn't care? — about other people, human rights, peaceful progress... and about Charles?

But that is a narcissistic egotism of his own, surely. The roots of Erik's madness were twisted deep into poisonous ground long before he ever met Charles. Still, Charles is fully aware of just how much his forgiveness irks Erik. That Charles can forgive him even Alkali Lake, for instance, is such an indigestible morsel that even now, five years on, Charles can feel it broiling away inside Erik somewhere on this island.

Does he know Charles is here yet?

Charles always know when Erik is thinking about him. Neither distance nor that damned helmet protect either of them from that, though they prevent Charles hearing the fine detail of Erik's thoughts. Charles doesn't seem to need Cerebro to connect to Erik's unshielded mind from afar, but Erik's thoughts are rarely unshielded. When they are, his thoughts are so full of anger directed straight towards Charles that Charles has to assume that Erik wanted them read.

Anyone would think it was Charles who tried to use Erik as a genocide weapon, a final solution, and not the other way around.

He swigs some water from the bottle he's carried up here with him. It's already as warm as the air around him.

Does Erik's fury stems from the fact that he failed in his attempt to kill all the normal humans on Earth? Or maybe it's because he knows he went too far at the lake, too far to ever be forgiven. And yet he is, by Charles at least, and that Charles can forgive the unforgivable seems to make Erik despair.

Does he want Charles to hate him? Does he want Charles to validate his own self-loathing by mirroring it? Is Erik unable to truly give up on himself while Charles still holds onto hope for him? Sometimes Erik seems so old and tired; life has held little but pain for him. Maybe he'd like to rest now.

Ah, again, Charles has to question his own motives here. Does he only formulate these theories of Erik's psyche because they give him a position of axis mundi within Erik's psychological map? Because he _does_ wants to be important to Erik; he's far too self aware to deny that. But Charles is in Erik's thoughts as often as Erik is in Charles'. This he knows as fact. So while Charles should never forget that his desires may be influencing his conclusions, the conclusions themselves can't be utterly without foundation.

A small iridescent beetle lands on his hand. It walks his flesh for a few steps, its touch a ticklish kiss, before clearly deciding that this strange pink land is not for it and flying away again to more profitable environs.

Charles' neck is starting to ache, so he looks down and rolls his head in slow circles, easing the tensed muscles.

It's so like Erik, this Alexandrian monument, or at least, it's so like the man Erik has become. He never had a true adolescence so never experienced teenage rebellion. The authority of the death camp guards was far too terrifying to rebel against. All anyone can hope for under such conditions is to endure.

But rebellion's a necessary part of becoming adult, of learning who you are. Those who are denied this stage at the right time tend to succumb to personal revolution years later, walking out on careers and families, living wildly and seeking freedom. Only after this defiance is done with can they settle back down to responsibility and a quieter life. Some, however, become stuck, never able to stop rebelling because the voice of authority in their heads is so huge and overpowering that they can never hope to shut it up.

Charles sips more water, lost in Erik's memories for a few moments. He has inadvertently gained a lot of them over the years. They are not... pleasant. Finding his handkerchief in a pocket, he dabs at his brow. Oh, please let Erik get here soon.

Would it have been kinder to force healing on Erik years ago? Charles could have done it at almost any time back when they were friends. He could have ripped Erik's towering, higgledy-piggledy walls down and compelled him to relive the trauma, all of it, as Charles soothed and rewrote his synapses, taking the pain away, giving Erik a psychic lobotomy.

How many graves would remain unfilled today, had he done so?

Oh, it would've been rape, of course, since Erik has always refused Charles permission, and maybe it would've been the greatest of all of the many crimes committed against Erik over the years. Yet he would've had a much happier life had Charles done it, and so many disastrous key events in mutant/human relations could have been averted.

Charles never has the answer to these questions, no matter how often he asks himself them. All he knows is that it would destroy something inside of himself were he to do that to Erik.

But if Erik continues to do these things _because_ of Charles -- because of what Charles is to him, or simply because it lies in Charles' power to stop Erik forever, and yet he doesn't -- how much responsibility for Erik's actions does Charles therefore share?

It's questions such as these that keep him awake when the world around him sleeps.

Charles feels Erik's presence behind him shortly before Erik speaks. "Hello, Charles. Surely you haven't been foolish enough to come here, of all places, alone?"

Charles doesn't bother turning his chair. If Erik wants to see Charles' face, he'll no doubt turn it for himself anyway. Charles smiles upon hearing Erik's voice, though, as he always does. "Hello, Erik. I thought this was meant to be a sanctuary for all mutants. Did I mishear the guarantee of safety during the evening when you commandeered all the television channels the world over? Are all these mutants I can sense below us in your brave new capital city wrong to believe your spiel?"

He hears Erik snort. "They aren't. Arrogant of you, Charles, perhaps fatally so to assume the offer applies to you as well."

Even after Alkali Lake, Charles finds it hard to believe Erik could kill him in cold blood. "Am I not a mutant? Wouldn't it be more arrogant to assume it didn't apply to me?"

Another snort and the chair begins to move until Charles is facing Erik -- he's wearing his woven metal costume, of course, slate grey and maroon, militaristic in style like that of all good dictators. Why isn't Erik isn't flushed with the heat? Ah, but of course, he can no doubt use the metal of his suit to quickly disperse body heat when necessary. The helmet is still just as ugly, just as disfiguring as ever. Does Erik realise that the reason Charles dislikes the helmet so much is not because it blocks his powers?

"I'm in danger of forgetting what you look like, old friend," Charles tell him.

"Interested in my thoughts, are you, Charles?" A wry smile briefly hooks up one side of Erik's mouth. "I doubt it requires psychic ability to work out what they are just at this moment."

He's right, of course. "You want to know why I'm here and probably also how I got here. You want to know why none of your scanners and psychics can sense the X-Men keeping an eye on me. You want to know what I want."

"A fair approximation."

Charles nods. "I'm here because I want to talk to you. I got here undetected with the help of my own powers and those of various X-Men who are now, much to their considerable displeasure, safely gone from Genosha. What I want... ah, well, that is more complicated."

"It always is," Erik says dryly, folding his arms. "Shall I save us both time and simply say 'no' now?"

"You would be a fool to do so."

"Ah, of course." Erik chuckles. "Because listening to yet another lecture about human rights would not be a waste of my time? I'm a busy man, Charles. I've a country to run."

"How long do you think it will take before the rest of the world realises that a few strategically targeted warheads could end the mutant threat forever?" Charles asks, rubbing at the back of his neck. The sun is slowly appearing around the side of statue now, and it makes a silhouette out of Erik. "Maybe they're merely waiting for the immigration process to slow down, to get as many birds as possible with their stone."

Erik gestures dismissively, his cloak wafting back with the movement, briefly blocking the sun. "I've yet to hear of a nuclear missile that didn't involve metal in its construction. If they bomb Genosha, they'll learn the true meaning of 'ricochet'."

Charles expected no other answer. "And when you're dead, Erik? What then? Or does your mutant empire only matter while you live to enjoy the power?"

Helmet or no helmet, Charles can feel the shadow of Erik's anger at his words. "I'll leave a missile defence system far superior to any currently in existence as part of my legacy. This isn't a... an ego-trip, Charles."

In answer, Charles merely cranes his neck to look up at the statue again.

Erik snorts and walks further into the shadow, a small kindness maybe, especially as he turns the chair accordingly. "Nothing you can say, threaten, or imply will make me return this land to the humans who previously lived out their useless lives here. I didn't put an end to those lives; be satisfied with that."

"Yes," Charles replies, his own tone as dry as Erik's often can be. "That was generous of you indeed, but you're making assumptions, Erik."

"Assumptions about what? About what you want from me?" He laughs. "Well, it seemed unlikely you were here for a game of chess, and it's been a long time since you wanted anything else from me beyond a quick match and an opportunity to urge me to correct my sinful ways."

That isn't true, and Charles is certain Erik knows it isn't true, but all the same, Charles won't argue. Let Erik believe, or claim to believe, what he likes. That's not what's important here. "The Mutant Registration Act became law yesterday."

"So it did." Erik smiles slyly. "Would you have me believe you are truly here for refuge?"

"We've discovered that at least three remote military compounds in America are receiving an expensive makeover as we speak. Protocols are being written, scientists and technologists co-opted. A covert war has been declared, Erik. Where America leads, most of the world will follow. Some will kill their mutants; some will attempt to enslave them, but few governments will feel comfortable taking the risk of a free mutant population anymore."

Charles sees Erik's eyebrows rise under the prongs of his helm. "Containment camps already, Charles? Well, you can't say I didn't warn you."

"Neither," Charles says peevishly, "can I say that your actions here in Genosha were not the hammer that drove the nail into the coffin of mutant rights." He closes his eyes briefly, seeking calm, but nothing has changed when he opens them again.

With another dismissive gesture, Erik casts Charles' words aside. "It was going to happen anyway; maybe not so soon, but it was inevitable. You and I, Charles, may have been the first of the alpha-level mutations, but more mutants of extraordinary power are being born every day, and many are not prepared to lie back and take it -- the way you are, old friend." He smiles.

Charles ignores the cruel innuendo. It isn't as if he has a lot of choice about his physical passivity in bed, but Erik can't have forgotten that Charles more than made up for it with his mind. Something, incidentally, that Charles has long thought also applies to the way he manipulates American politics. But it seems now that his touch is too subtle when compared to the threat of Erik and his followers. Sensing the concentration of power on this island, Charles can almost see the politicians' point.

"It seems you may have won, Erik, in your battle to promote the belief that mutants are superior to ordinary humans. That, indeed, mutants aren't human at all. Judging by recent polls, the majority of ordinary Americans seem to agree with you, and once the enemy is effectively dehumanised, then any action taken against them becomes acceptable. You, of all people, know that."

Erik nods, looking serious. "Your children are welcome here if you seek safety for them. I'll protect them as I will everyone else here to the limits of my power. You can trust me to do that."

Surprisingly, Charles does. "Thank you. I appreciate that. The thought of the little ones undergoing what–" what Erik lived through "–what these people have planned for them horrifies me. That isn't the only reason I'm here, however."

Erik crouches down in front of Charles, his expression gentle, and Charles feels himself respond to that as if they'd never stopped being lovers. Sometimes, being able to carefully repress selected feelings is a boon. Charles is able to keep his expression to one of mild interest.

"Have you come here to admit that I was right all along, Charles?" Erik asks.

Charles shakes his head. "I admit only that you are right _now_, that we do need a Genosha, a haven to protect us from the destructive power of mass fear, _now_. I can't deny what's coming, and I won't, whatever you may think of me, sit back complacently and let it come. But as it may well be, Erik, that you inadvertently created this situation to fit your conviction of what was inevitable, I'll never say that you were right all along."

Erik looks troubled for a few moments, and Charles allows himself a brief surge of hope, but then Erik brushes it aside with a shake of his head. "And your X-Men? You yourself?"

"We would like to use Genosha as our base, if we may." Erik snorts, but Charles stubbornly continues. "Our priorities have changed, Erik. While I'd like nothing better than the luxury to continue to strive for peaceful co-existence, that is no longer possible in the short term. We need to concentrate on rescuing our own before the worst can happen."

"You should've let me kill all the competition when I had the chance," Erik says, standing again and turning away. "Although I suppose it wasn't you who stopped that little venture. I'll admit to being surprised you can still talk to me now, however." His tone is carefully pitched between amusement and casual interest as if he doesn't care at all what Charles might answer.

"You were under the influence of Stryker's serum," Charles says, grateful for a chance to at last tell Erik what he'd discovered in the days since Alkali Lake. "It stayed in the body for a long time after the direct mind control wore off. You'd been imprisoned, brutalised and subjected to chemical brainwashing. You narrowly averted an attempt to kill every mutant in existence, and in your anger and confusion, you took the opportunity to reverse the process."

"Charles, I do believe you're making excuses for me." Hasn't he always? Staring at Erik's back, Charles strains pointlessly to read him.

Making Charles jump, a chunk of metal suddenly rips itself from the base of the statue and flies to Erik's hands. Charles can't see what Erik's doing with it -- using it as worry beads, maybe.

"Who understands you better than I?" Charles asks, steepling his fingers. "I know that something of what you did that day was personal. I know you blamed me for your imprisonment and the nature of your transparent cell. But I don't believe you thought at all rationally about your decision to use me as a final solution and what that would do to me. I also, far more importantly, consider you incapable of mass-murder when sane."

"How touching. Thank you for your faith in me, Professor." Erik turns back to face Charles, a tiny replica of his statue in his hands. He gives it to Charles. "You're quite wrong, of course."

Charles smiles softly, looking over his new doll, a perfect miniature of the colossus beside them. It reminds him of a clockwork soldier he'd had as a child. "I don't think so."

"Self-delusion?" Erik harrumphs. "Were I an expert in psychology like your good self, I'd be wondering why it was so important to you to believe that I'm not the monster many think me."

Charles chuckles at that, at Erik trying to use Charles' own weapons against him. "Then I in turn would ask why it's so important to you that I believe you _are_ that monster. If you want to convince me of my error, take off your helm and let me read it in your thoughts."

Erik shakes his head. "Oh, Charles, you never really change, do you? And that, of course, is why I can't let you settle here. You wouldn't be able to stop yourself interfering."

A large bird circles in the sky above, riding the currents -- ah, no, that's not a bird. Charles catches curious thoughts from the silhouette in the sky -- what is the Lord Magneto doing with a crippled man on the hillside? That's a mutant up there, free to fly without concern of observers. Most of the mutants here are not militants; they're not here to provide Erik with an army. They are ordinary people with unique powers who just want the chance to be themselves and live without fear.

"Yes, I agree," Charles tells Erik. "Interference from one of equal power to your own would be aggravating, wouldn't it? How much better then would be collaboration?"

Erik laughs aloud at that, his head tipped back. The gesture seems deliberately dramatic, but then he stills and stares at Charles, frowning. "You can't possibly be serious."

"Why not? We both want to do what's best for mutantkind, after all, and the two most powerful and experienced mutants in the world working together should surely be able to ensure that."

"Why stop there?" Erik's lips quirk. "Perhaps you also want us to live together again? Share a bed once more?"

"One thing at a time, old friend," Charles says, smiling because he caught another shadow of emotion there, and it wasn't anger.

Erik's stare hardens, a protective wall keeping Charles out almost as effectively as the damned helmet. "Why should I trust you?"

"Why should I bother trying to deceive you, Erik, when, if that were my wish, I'd only need hide and wait until you remove your helmet in order to compel you to believe me?" Charles needed only to lure Erik here like this and have another mutant, Kurt Wagner maybe, appear while Erik was distracted and then vanish again with the damned helmet. Charles could strike instantly. Erik would be helpless.

Charles pushes his thumb over the helmet of the model he's been given as if hoping to detach it.

"Maybe," Erik says, watching Charles' hands, "you wish to deceive me only until I foolishly give you that opportunity to compel me."

"You know me better than to think that. Hasn't one of your gripes always been my reluctance to use my powers to interfere in such ways?"

"And yet you have when it's suited you to do so." Erik holds up his hand, stopping Charles' indignant reply. "No, not with me -- because of some misdirected old sentiment, no doubt -- but with others. You've wiped inconvenient memories when your X-Men have been naughty in public, and you've frequently stolen personal information from unprotected minds. I myself have experienced a friend's hand around my throat as you controlled him. You can't claim you never use your powers to get what you want, Charles."

"It's a matter of degree," I tell him calmly. "You've always seen things in unrealistic terms of all or nothing, black or white." Or does Charles mean slate grey and maroon? He hides his smile; it's inappropriate. "Polarising everything makes decisions easy. Things are either completely right or utterly wrong, and consideration beyond that is unnecessary."

"You're the deep thinker, not I." Erik sounds disinterested.

"That much is obvious," Charles says, somewhat unfairly as Erik's doing himself an injustice. "That's why you need me here."

"Careful, Charles," Erik warns. He's never liked to be called stupid, whatever he implies himself.

"If you go to war against the rest of the world, against the ordinary and understandably scared humans who vastly outnumber us, millions if not billions of people will die, and many of them will be mutants. How much better would be a diplomatic process, a cold war if you like, maintaining a state of ice-bound truce until the world is ready to acknowledge Genosha as a sovereign power?"

"I'm not interested in diplomacy." By which he means he's not very good at it -- typical Erik.

"I am, and I believe I'm rather skilled at it." Charles smiles at Erik. "Every world power uses diplomacy as their first resort, backed if necessary by the threat of superior force. To answer everything automatically with violence is simply too costly in terms of resources and lives. No world leader would last long with that kind of attitude."

Erik smirks at that. He probably believes no could oust him from his perch here. He has always underestimated Charles. "Why should we pander to humans?" he asks. "It's not their world any longer."

Is that 'we' as a hopeful sign? "It is _our_ world, the world of every living creature born here. Diplomacy is not pandering; it's a search for peaceful compromise. I realise that 'compromise' is not an easy concept to one whose thinking is so polarised, but–"

"Any minute now, you're going to bring up the Christmas tree again, aren't you?"

Charles can't help but laugh. It's somewhat ironic that with everything he and Erik have had to argue about over the years -- life and death issues and serious ethical questions -- their loudest and most vicious argument, the one everyone present at the time still remembers to this day, had been about a damned Christmas tree. "I don't need to bring it up; we both know I was right."

Erik snorts, rolling his eyes skyward. "Genosha is safe, Charles. There's nothing they can do to us that I can't stop. If they send soldiers, I'll turn their own weapons upon them. If they bomb us, I'll catch the bombs and send them back to their population centres."

"You will do no such thing!" Oh, sometimes the man aggravates Charles beyond endurance. "Why kill millions of innocents just to make a point that people will be too busy screaming to hear? If they send bombs, you'll catch them, yes, and you will show them very clearly that you could send them back if you wished, that you could indeed kill millions, but then you just as pointedly won't do it."

Erik pulls himself tall, glaring down at me imperiously. "Since when do you give me orders?"

Charles sighs, letting his eyelids briefly fall as he steeples his hands over his nose, pressing into the corners of his eyes. "I'm not trying to take over, Erik," he says when he looks up again. "I'm trying to help you. They already have metal-free firearms, you know. Would it be that hard to create warheads from synthetic materials? I'm sure that, given this incentive, they will do it. They may have already done so."

Now Erik's expression is mulish. "I'm working on a dome, an island-wide forceshield nothing can get through unless I let it."

"Good," Charles says, feeling suddenly very weary. It's the heat, probably. "I'm glad to hear that, but you still need to deal with the rest of the world. This island isn't self sufficient, and mass slaughter isn't the answer. Most of your new citizens here would not stand for it; you have to know that. They all have family and friends back where they came from, and not all of them were abusive or rejecting."

"I don't need you, Charles." Erik says it regretfully, and that makes it personal. It makes it hurt until Charles puts a quick stop to his own pain.

"You do, Erik, and more importantly, everyone here needs me too. Without me, you haven't a hope of success, and they have only the slenderest hope of survival."

"Rubbish." Erik's hand waves in dismissal, and Charles' chair shoots back a few feet. Charles nearly drops the miniature statue.

It's time to speak frankly. Either Erik will listen, or they'll all repent at leisure. "Your urge for self-destruction is as huge as this preposterous monument of yours, Erik, and your self-delusion nearly as vast. Without me to see clearly for you, your best and most noble efforts to save the mutant race will come to nothing. No, worse than nothing -- they'll come to genocide and extinction for us all. You need me, my friend. I'll not stand in the way of what you are trying to achieve here; I will help you to achieve it."

Charles can feel Erik's anger, waves of it, coming at him so strongly that he can only pray Erik doesn't choose to remove his helm. Now, Charles doesn't want to know Erik's thoughts. Erik stands rigidly, his nostrils flared, staring down at Charles like a stone vulture -- no, like his damned statue, frozen in disdain. Did he actually hear anything Charles said after the first sentence? Charles was a fool; he made his points in the wrong order, and he knows better than to do that.

A slight whoosh of cooling air wafts over Charles as Erik moves suddenly upwards, turning from Charles and moving rapidly away as he continues to rise. Soon he has vanished behind the giant statue. That seems so horribly allegoric that Charles can only assume it's deliberate on Erik's part.

Charles has failed.

He knew really that there was only the slightest of chances that Erik would agree to their proposal, yet in his arrogance Charles thought Erik might say yes if Charles were the one to ask him. Maybe Charles is as self-deluded as Erik claims he is, as deluded as Charles considers Erik to be.

Glumly, Charles moves his thumb on the chair's control box, and the caterpillar tracks start taking him back downhill while he signals to the Blackbird, currently circling the island out of the immediate range of Erik's power. Erik will sense its approach this time, even with their various shields and scan-blocks. He knows to look now. Erik hadn't seemed particularly murderous today though. If he were, Charles wouldn't still be here to think these thoughts.

By the time the jet's hovering at the foot of the hill, Charles has had more than enough of the sweltering sun. Scott appears to help him up the ramp, and he's soon strapped in while Ororo lifts the jet from the ground again. Neither of them asks, so Charles stares down at the model of Erik's statue in his lap and simply tells them. "He said no."

They are both silent, and then Scott asks carefully, "Sir, are you sure?"

Charles frowns, unclear why Scott would doubt him. Scott's thoughts seem confused. He was certain for some reason that Magneto had said yes. Oh, such faith in Charles' ability shames him. "He didn't actually say no, Scott, but his actions made his feelings about allying himself with us, with me, perfectly clear."

Scott's face becomes typically impassive.

A quick glance out of the window shows Charles that they're are still above Genosha. "Ororo, we can't tarry here. You shouldn't presume on his patience."

"But Professor, are you absolutely sure he said no?" she asks, and Charles senses the same confusion from her, and this time he looks deeper and sees a very unlikely image in her thoughts. "Show me," he demands, his sudden need too urgent for politeness. He grasps the armrests of the seat. "Show me now."

She flies the Blackbird around in a great circle until they are approaching the city again and Erik's giant folly. The vast metal face stares at them as they approach, stern and heroic, the mighty protector of his people. For the first time, however, Charles can see that there's another head, perhaps another body, joined to Erik's and behind it. It wasn't there before. Unlike the toy soldier in his lap, this statue is now a janus, a Siamese twin of a contraption.

The jet circles so that Charles can view the other face more clearly, and he can't hold back his gasp when he sees that the image he saw in Ororo's mind was a true one. Somehow, while Charles trundled back down the hillside, Erik silently reworked his colossus. The Master of Magnetism is no longer alone in his lofty hillside vigil, for while his image continues to stare down paternally at the mutant city he has built, another face now looks out over the sea to the rest of the world.

And that face belongs to Charles.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in October 2005. Grateful beta thanks to wesleysgirl, wolfling and rikhei.


End file.
